Charlotte’s expanding airport

What’s happening: The 10-gate, $231 million project, which will include three common-use gates, plus Delta Air Lines, is scheduled for fall 2024 completion. The new gates will be A31-40. 

Why it matters: Charlotte is the fifth-busiest airport in the world for arrivals and departures and the sixth-busiest for passenger traffic, per Airports Council International 2021 preliminary rankings.

Details: The project is 191,848-square-feet, with auto-tinting windows to help with temperature and sunlight control. It will also be wider than the airport’s other domestic concourses, with high ceilings and scenic windows.

You’ll also be able to charge your device at gate seats.

There will also be two new pieces of art, in partnership with the Arts & Science Council, by artists Benjamin Ball and Val Britton. Ball’s work will be suspended under the skylights in the center of the concourse. Britton’s will be on the west facing mezzanine wall. 

• There will also be art on the floor between Concourse A’s two expansion phases, showing the lengths of each Wright brothers’ flight attempt before Kitty Hawk. 

Food and drink: A new retail store, restaurant and two open bars are expected.

Of note: A North Carolina Airport Improvement Program state grant, Passenger Facility Charge bonds and non-Passenger Facility Charge bonds are paying for the project.

• Contractors for the expansion are JE Dunn and McFarland, which C Design and Perkins+Will designed. 

Flashback: The expansion will be on a former rental car site, demolished in 2016.

Zoom out: The airport always seems to be under construction. Concourse E expansion opened in April, adding a gate to the north end, and relocating nine existing gates to the new space. And in March, the airport opened another lounge between gates A21-29.